


Myth

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Canon, Drama, No Slash, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-21
Updated: 2003-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-26 18:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12064383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Three weeks after the Rage party, Brian comes back to the diner.





	Myth

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

Pretending is not what it used to be. 

Not that long ago I rejoiced in the fact that the world around me believed, loved and worshiped the image I had created for myself. No matter how many would say that I was an insensitive prick, an egotistical maniac, an asshole and many other things, I knew, I still know, and that they loved me. Those closer to me loved me, worshipped me and found themselves thanking the Gods for having been chosen to be my friends. They found themselves glad to be around me at Woody's and Babylon because being in my company indicated that they were worth something. The others, those I didn't even know, were glad every time I walked by, they sucked in their breath and closed their eyes as countless fantasies of being in my bed played over in their heads. They counted themselves as lucky to have the honor of watching Brian Kinney walk by. The tricks were ever luckier that they were chosen for my bed, even if only for that one night. Everybody knew the way I operated: one night, no sentiments, no kisses. Everyone knew what I liked and I think that most even came prepared. I was the one with the power to turn the most brutal top into a pathetic nellie bottom. Me. No one else, only me. 

I enjoyed living like this, adhering to a code of morals and rules that my heart struggled against every single day. People would ask, what more could I possibly want? I had the job, the loft, the car, the life. I was it. I was everything everyone else wanted to be. I'm not entirely sure when it all changed and I stopped being who I wanted to be. 

I still have the power to do as I wish with virtually any man and I still do as I wish with them. Only, only, now it doesn't feel the same. Now I don't enjoy the stares and invitations everywhere I go. Only now I don't want to be with any of these men, because I only want the one I can't have. Jealousy is a wonderful, horrible feeling. It is only because of jealousy that I give a shit, that it feels so horrible when he's not here. Had he left on his own volition, with no coaxing from the greasy scum, I wouldn't be missing him as much as I do. Yeah. That's it. Jealousy. Nothing else.

I never did care much for Justin.that's starting to fail me too. These days I can hardly convince myself that I don't love him, that I'm not in love with him. I tell myself that I don't believe in love and therefore there is no possible way that I could be in love. Yet, yet, yet my heart cries every time I close my eyes and see his face, every time I roll in my bed to find that he's not by my side, every time my office phone doesn't ring because of him, every time I find myself fucking a trick who's not him. 

I shouldn't care, not really. After all, he's just a young little twink who doesn't know shit about life. What can a man like me, like ME, want with a boy like him? Somehow I feel unable to answer that question even as the answer plays in my head. 

My feet have led me to a place I never thought I'd be but there is nothing I can do to turn around and walk away. I'm frozen in place, staring straight ahead, feeling my heart beat faster and stronger than ever before. And for what? For a little blond twink who broke all the fucking rules and in turn broke my fucking heart and killed my reputation. I heard the talk around town before I decided to absent myself from the scene. They all know that Brian Kinney got dumped, got rejected and now I'm nothing more but a legend, a myth. I might as well have never existed.

For the past three weeks I've been so extremely 'busy' that I haven't had the time to stop by the diner, answer calls or go out at night. Of course, that's just my excuse for hiding, but I don't think anyone would contradict me, at least not to my face. I have been busy, though, just not enough to make myself absent from every aspect of my life that does not include work. It's unbelievable, even, that I haven't had sex in three weeks. The longest time I'd ever gone without sex before was a total of three days. Those three days during which I sat outside Justin's hospital room waiting to see if he was going to live or die. And now the twink has turned three days into three weeks. 

The first week after the breakup, or whatever it was, I went all out, fucked everything in sight only to find myself incredibly bored with the incredibly hot-yet-monotonous tricks. I wanted a blond, blue-eyed boy and no one else. I think it funny that I couldn't be monogamous for him, and now that he's gone I've been celibate for three weeks. That is fucking pathetic. What have I turned into? What the fuck have I turned into that I can't even walk into the diner I've frequented every day for years on end? I tell myself that I don't want to face Debbie, Mikey and, hell, even Ted and Emmett but the real reason I don't want to enter is the same reason my feet led me here. 

Justin. The fucking twink. 

I draw a few appreciative, or are they pitiful, looks as I stand in front of the diner. Yeah, Liberty Avenue's hottest stud looking plain and confused in front of Liberty's most frequented yet worst place to get food. Sad, isn't it? Well, I might as well walk inside. It's easy, right? One foot in front of the other, simple. 

The door opens and I take it as my chance to walk inside. Everything looks the same and as always, heads turn my way as I walk down the narrow path towards the regular table. I smile at Debbie who's standing behind the counter, and for once I think she's speechless. Debbie has the tendency to talk way too much. I don't think she knows when it's proper to butt in and when you really, really should keep out of it. Mikey's like that, too. There were times when I wondered how, just how, Vic was so different. My answer came in the form of a city; Vic had run away to New York and acquired some culture along with knowledge for the rules of proper social behavior. 

I wanted to run to New York as well, live a different life with people more like me but the job fell through. At first, I was heavily disappointed but as the minutes ticked by, a wave of relief swept through me. Now, I wasn't leaving my old life behind, now I wasn't leaving him behind. He was the reason I had wanted to leave and he was the reason I was relieved to stay. 

As I slide into the booth I feel my heart start to beat just a little bit faster, if it is even possible. For a moment or two I stare at my hands, carefully cementing the mask in place, and then I look up. Eyes wide, mouth almost hanging open, Emmett is staring at me as if I was the hottest piece of ass he'd ever seen. Well I know, I know that I am the hottest piece of ass he's ever seen. I'm the hottest piece of ass anyone in this diner has ever seen. I switch my gaze from Emmett to Ted, who shakes his head and mutters something about having an orgy in twenty minutes. Emmett slides out of the booth, they kiss and Ted departs. Fuck, I'd forgotten all about those two, and my face twists into a mask of apparent disgust. 

"Eat your heart out." Emmett chirps as he notices my expression. Yeah, disgust is what they see but inside I'm only burning for..well, that. 

"Brian! Where have you been?! I've been leaving you hundreds of messages and the door to the loft won't even open! Cynthia never puts you through!..." Mikey whines beside me. I turn and look at him with a stone cold look that should shut him up in five milliseconds. It does. Then I say, calmly,

"It's none of your business where I've been, Mikey." and I know, I know, what he's going to say next. I turn to look at Emmett who mouths Mikey's words along with him

"But I'm your BEST friend!" 

"Listen, Mikey, I've been busy with work. There was a burglar in the building the other night and everyone changed locks." I half-lie. Yes, there was a burglar in the building, but is that really a reason to change the locks? Not really, they changed the access codes to the building and that should be enough. Truth is, I didn't want Mikey or Lindsay or anyone barging in and launching into their routine "Fuck Justin" and "Get Justin Back" speeches. I didn't need Mikey's hateful words towards the man that I.feel something for and I certainly didn't need Lindsay's sermons on how much I love him and how I should get him back. She said that all I had to do was tell him I loved him and he'd be back, and for a second there I started to believe her. I needed to get away. So I did. I changed the fucking locks. 

"Busy with work" Emmett snorts, "busy fucking everything that moves is more likely." And then, just then, Justin walks by. I think the coffee I stole from Mikey has gone bad, because all of a sudden I feel a sudden urge to vomit. I take a deep breath, close my eyes and try to settle my stomach. Well, that didn't work. So I get up, almost knock the boy over and run towards the back. I almost didn't make it to the stall, but thankfully I did. 

I can't help but think I've made a fool of myself. It's been a month since the breakup, since he walked out of me, and you'd think that I'd be over him already. After all, I am an insensitive asshole. But then, even after I exile myself from everything for three weeks, even then, I can't stand to see him walk by. I can't stand to see him walk by, so comfortable in this gay world that I, I, brought him into. I can't stand to think that he's not mine anymore, that's he's not..my little creation anymore. And I know what you're thinking, how big can my ego be that I'm upset just because I can't fucking control him anymore, but it's not about that. It's really not. It's about knowing that I've lost him, that even if I want him to he won't be in my bed tonight. And let me tell you something, he's the only man I can say that about. Every other man, trick, twink, whatever, will be in my bed when I want them to be. Hell, I think that even Emmett would be glad to be asked into the Kinney Sanctuary. But it's not Emmett or anyone else that I want. See, this is why I never wanted to believe in feelings. 

After the last of the coffee has been expelled from my body, I lean my back against the cool metal of the stall and sigh. I can't remember a time in my life when I've felt this weak. Maybe, maybe, back when my father used to beat the shit out of me I felt a little bit like this. I never could understand why it was that he hit me. Most of the time I got into trouble he wouldn't even notice. Mom always used to throw away any school letters unopened, always used to disregard any calls regarding my skipping or gluing a teacher to a chair. I never understood why soccer trophies and the third highest average in the grade wasn't enough to please him, why a full ride to Penn State wasn't enough. Well, by the time I got the scholarship he couldn't beat me anymore, but he still yelled and fumed and tried. 

When Justin's father attacked me outside Babylon that night, I was transported back to my childhood. I lay on the floor and felt his feet connecting with my ribs and all I could think of was my father, his rages and the way my sister and mother would just sit by and watch quietly. And I knew I couldn't leave Justin with this man, because God forbid anything happen to him. God forbid this man hit him. That was the first time I realized that he was getting a little too close for comfort, it was the first time I wanted to run and hide. I did the complete opposite. 

Eventually, finally, I push myself off the floor and walk towards the sink. I stare at my reflection in disbelief; the dark circles around my eyes and the tired look are not what Brian Kinney is supposed to look like. I have to let him go, let him be happy and, as I said at the muncher's anniversary fiasco, get what he wants. The kid deserves it after all. So tonight, tonight I'll put on my stud suit on and show Pittsburg that I am not a legend, not yet. I'm going to show those kids who think they can rival me that they've got nothing on Brian Kinney, that no one can compare to Brian Kinney. And I'm going to show them, to show myself, that I don't want Justin, that I don't love Justin, that I don't need Justin. 

"Brian" Fuck. "are you okay?" 

I swallow the lump in my throat and nod. And then I think, how pathetic are you that you have to nod? Can't I even speak?! 

"I think I've made a mistake coming back, even the smell of the food makes me sick." I say as I wash my hands. 

"Somehow I think it's not the food that made you sick." He states calmly. The kid always did have a way of seeing through me. I thought that he saw through me clearly enough, all right, so I didn't make any efforts to explain myself or my feelings, whatever those might be. I thought he knew,that he saw through me as plainly as he had before. 

Obviously I was wrong. 

When I don't reply he adds, "I almost spilled the coffee on Emmett; you should've seen his face." I turn the water off and grab a paper towel still trying to ignore him, trying to keep myself from looking at him.

 

"Good thing you didn't." I mutter as I throw the paper towel in the trash and turn to exit the bathroom. 

"Brian" he echoes. "Wait." 

Wait. Wait was all that I had to say at the Rage party and Justin would probably still be mine. All I had to say was Wait, and then come up with some fucked up explanation for fucking Rage. Hell, I even had the excuses and speeches running through my head before I even saw that the greasy scum was there with him. I thought that letting him go was the best thing, that pushing him off the cliff was all he needed to realize that I wasn't good for him and that I didn't love him. I thought that doing that was doing myself a favor so that I could get back to tricking and fucking without feeling guilty. But as soon as I came, as soon as I zipped my pants up, I realized that it wasn't what I wanted. Wait was all I had to say and I know he would've waited and listened, and he would've come back to me and forgotten all about the greasy scum. But I couldn't say it. I couldn't. What is it with me not being able to say four letter words without meaning?

I sigh and turn around slowly. "Brian, I." he starts. 

"Not here, Justin." I shake my head. 

"I have to talk to you." 

"Not here." 

"Then when? Where?" He asks and for a second I see him as the eager trick that wouldn't leave. 

"You can come by the loft later if you."

"No." He states firmly. "Not the loft. You're not going to fuck this conversation away." It stings but I deserve it, I guess. I always did fuck everything away. I fucked our non-relationship away, too. 

"Come by my office, then. Around five." He nods and I turn and exit the bathroom and the diner. I'd almost made it to the corner when Debbie comes after me. 

"Lemon bars." She says after she's caught up. "If you get hungry at the office." I peck her check and mutter thanks. Debbie is as close to a mother as I'll ever have. "We've all been worried about you, Brian. We thought that maybe you just didn't want to speak with Michael, but then Lindsay and Gus were unable to get to you, too." Fuck, Gus. I'd forgotten about Gus. What kind father am I that I forget about my own kid? I make a mental note to call Lindsay and to send Cynthia to buy Gus something expensive. 

"I've been busy."

"Cynthia said so, but I think it's something else altogether. You miss the kid, Brian." I look down at my feet as I remember that night at Woody's when Debbie convinced me to talk to Justin and set up some kind of.I think it suffices to say that was then night when our non-relationship was born, officially anyways. And then, then I remember Ted speaking of my boyfriend, referring to Justin as my boyfriend, when the kid was dancing at Babylon and I didn't correct him. 

"I don't miss him, Deb. He was just.a continuous fuck."

"Fuck he was. Listen, Kinney, you can't lie to me and you can't lie to yourself. So just admit you miss him and do something about it." 

"There's nothing I can do, Deb. Even if I missed him, he doesn't miss me." 

"You won't know that until you ask him." She says with a kiss to my cheek. "Take your bars and eat something, a skeleton has more meat than you do." 

"Deb, I've got more meat than any fucking skeleton you'll ever see." 

"Asshole." She says placing the box in my hand and rushing back inside the diner. 

Debbie and her little non-sermons. They can be fatal to a man who is trying not to think too much about a given situation. There goes my resolve to not be nervous until I saw Justin again. I can't remember any other person who has made me as nervous as Justin does. I remember that in college I had this teacher who probably had a very large stick up his ass half of the time. He was a fucking homophobic shit that was out to get me, and fail me at that. But even as I had to come and face him, face his class and his grudgingly passing grades, I was never nervous. All I had to remember was that someday I'd make enough money to have the power to have him fired, and I'd be fine. When that day came, however, I realized that I didn't give a fuck. 

But Justin, fuck, the kid is only nineteen and he can make me sweat worst than the marketing/advertising coordinator of the Coca-Cola Company. I enter the Jeep and start driving towards the office when I remember all about Gus and Lindsay. If there's anyone I can stand to be around right now, it'd be them. So I call Cynthia and tell her that I'm doing some research for a project, to forward all my business calls to my cell phone, and that I'd be there after lunch in time for my pitch to the furniture company. Fuck, I'd been reduced to furniture companies.at least it's Italian and I'll get a big fat discount when I land the account. Notice I used when instead of if. When it comes to my job, I know I'm just as good at selling people stuff they don't want or need as I am bringing men to orgasm. Oh, yeah.I fucked the rep for the company, too. He was pleased and that'll add any missing points to my pitch, not that I think there's any. But I'll get the account. I call Lindsay and at first she's hysterical. She's starting to sound too much like her husband, Melanie, to my liking. Maybe my absence let Lindsay believe all the crap Melanie says about me so continually. She never shuts the fuck up, and if I didn't know any better, I'd say she's as obsessed with me as Mikey. Hell, she'd probably have a better chance of scoring with me than Mikey. Not that I'd ever consider it, mind you. 

"Lindsay, I want to see my son. Please. I've been busy." I interrupt her angry ranting. "Please." And that's as close as I'll get to begging. 

"Okay, but you can't come over. Mel's working from home today and she's not happy with your right now." I wanna ask, when is she? But I don't feel like arguing with Lindsay today. 

"Meet me at the park then" she agrees and so we meet in the park half an hour later. 

The first thing that enters my mind as Gus yells 'Dada!' and jumps into my arms is how he'd be Abraham if it wasn't for Justin. Funny how the kid manages to sneak up on me all the time. And then I think how strange it is that a kid whom I'd just met a couple of hours before, a trick like any other, got to name my kid. How fucked up is that? As far as I knew at that moment, I'd never see the twink again after the night was over. But then, I also think I knew, from the moment I saw him under the street light, that he was there to change my life. Just as I was there to change his. Suddenly the words 'had a busy night' started echoing in my head and all I could do was hold onto Gus real tight, remembering the night he was born. 

"Mel's really angry. And I can't say that I'm not" Lindsay starts her sermon. I just shrug, who the fuck cares what Melanie thinks or feels about me, and sit down on the bench, bumping Gus on my knee. "Couldn't you even call to tell us you were fine?"

"As if you didn't already know?" And she gives me this look, this innocent look as if she's got no idea what I'm talking about. As if she forgets that Cynthia's loyalty is to me and not to her, to them, and that every time they called to see if they could talk to me, every time they pestered her for information about me she would tell me. But Lindsay keeps her look and I place Gus on the ground as I say, "Cynthia told me." 

"Oh." She already knew, of course. She knows who Cynthia works for. Alright, she might have some fantasy about sisterhood, but the bottom line is that Cynthia works for me.

She follows Gus with her eyes for a couple of seconds before she adds, "We wanted, needed to know from you. All she ever said was that you were in but in a closed-door meeting and could not be interrupted. No matter what time we called. No matter who called. Michael even got Ben to call."

I laughed. Cynthia told me about that too, and then she was outraged that he seemed such a decent man that would make such a good husband and how unfair it was that all the good-looking men like me were gay and how fucking unfair it was that all the decent men, like Ben, were also gay. That's as far as Cynthia will go with hating fags. She hasn't had the greatest luck with men, but what can you expect when dealing with breeders? But I keep hoping that one day she'll walk into my office, flash a six carat headlight and tell me to go fuck myself, have a nice life and she's never getting anyone coffee again. 

"Brian, you know that you can talk to me. It's not like I'm going to broadcast it." She says walking after Gus who was strolling a bit too far for comfort.

 

"Not intentionally, but Melanie would get it out of you and then she'd tell Ted who'd tell Emmett who'd tell Mikey who'd tell Deb who'd tell Vic who'd probably tell Justin if given the chance. And then, with all of you talking about me, the rest of Liberty Avenue would find out before nightfall." And I swear, that seemed like the sane thing to say. I mean, I trust Lindsay, but that doesn't mean I trust her lesbian lover. But then Lindsay picks up Gus and looks at me as if I have just made this great admission. Fuck. I might as well have just told her that I went into hiding because I didn't want people to know.whatever it was that she thinks I didn't want people to know. 

I don't think she's right, on what I didn't want people to know. Hell, I don't fucking know what I don't want people to know myself, so how could she? 

And the pisser is, it actually made sense to me. Not telling people, I mean. She sits down next to me and remains quiet, and eventually she lets Gus run off again. This time he stays close by. I know she's waiting for me to say something, but what the fuck am I supposed to say when I'm not entirely sure of what to think? 

"What do you want from me?" I ask the question that I failed to ask a month ago. That, along with wait, could have avoided all of this shit. 

She shrugs and then Gus comes running back to me. He hugs me and repeats 'Dada!' over and over again. It's a mystery to me why this kid cares about me, why he even acknowledges that I'm his father. Fuck, it still puzzles me that I'm a father. Most days I just sit around and wonder why, why, I gave into Lindsay. But then I think about Gus and the night he was born and how it felt to hold him in my arms for the first time. Then, of course, Justin sneaks into the picture. I remember how he was so nervous that night, telling me how in their school they talked about safe sex and who the fuck talks about anything that happened in school when you're about to lose your virginity to Pittsburgh's hottest stud?

Suddenly I don't feel so fatherly anymore, so I hand the baby back to Lindsay and leave with a promise to call the next day to check on Gus. "Brian" she says in a scolding manner, but I turn around and say, 

"I'm done, Lindsay. I took some time to myself, but that's over, all right? Next time that happens, I'll let you know in advance." Then she smiles and reminds me why she was the only girl I cared enough about to fuck. I know that goes against the Brian Kinney philosophy, but if I hadn't cared enough about Lindsay I would have never fucked her. 

Sitting in my office I can hardly concentrate on the very white and modern ad for the furniture company and thank God I'd fucked the rep because otherwise I don't think there would've been to much signing of papers after my half-assed pitch. But, as always, my cock left a lasting impression on his ass. Not that I like to do that, fuck people into signing accounts. Mostly, I don't fuck clients until after the signing's been done. I like to think that I'm good at what I do and have the success I have because I'm a fucking genius when selling people stuff they don't need or want is concerned, not because I'm a fucking God in bed. He even offers me a quickie in the bathroom, but I politely decline making a future 'date' I've got no intention to keep. 

I stare at the clock and sigh. It's finally almost, almost, time. I don't know what Justin has to say and I'm not sure that I want to hear him say it, but fuck it if I don't want to see him again. I do. That's as much as I can figure out right now. 

The Brian Kinney I used to know never used to doubt anything. He was never caught off guard and nothing, nothing, was ever out of his control. Moreover, he would never ever go three weeks without sex and would die before declining an offer to fuck an incredibly hot guy, more so if that guy had just placed 30 grand into his pocket by signing a contract. 

The Brian Kinney I know now doesn't know much of anything. He gets constantly thrown off guard by the simplest things and feels like he's got no control over his emotions. He's gone three weeks without sex and just turned down an offer to fuck and incredibly hot guy that just placed 30 grand into his pocket by signing a contract. All because of a nineteen year old boy. 

I close the file on the computer because it's pointless to stare at it right now when I know that I'm not going to get anything done today. Then I shuffle through the papers on my desk, throw half of them away and place the other half in a neat stack on the top left hand corner of the desk. "Hey, Boss?" Cynthia calls from the intercom. I push a button and answer with a lazy, 

"Yeah?"

"Justin is here. He says you agreed to see him." I nod, even though I know she can't see me. 

Cynthia is great. I know that as much as she knows that Justin is.even though she knows that I feel whatever I feel for Justin she would never, ever, let him in without checking with me. She never lets Mikey or Lindsay or Debbie in without checking with me. It annoys them, but I wouldn't have it any other way. 

"Boss?" 

"Yeah, it's okay. You can let him in." and I just as soon finish my sentence as the door of my office pushes open and Justin walks inside. Slowly, hesitatingly, as if he's walking into hostile territory. For a moment, that makes me feel like shit but then I remember that he was the one who left me. He was the one who walked out and crushed my heart and reputation. 

"Hey." He says. 

"Hey." I say back. He stands over my desk, playing with his sleeves in that fucking insecure-little-boy attitude of his that sends me over the edge. Justin is anything but. "Sit the fuck down. I'm not going to kill you for it." 

"Right, right." He mumbles more to himself than anything else. He sits and looks at me for a moment before I'm forced to turn my eyes away. When I look back up, the angry face on the story board behind him seems to taunt me. So I get up and flip the story board close with a loud noise and crawl back to my chair. Justin looks so fucking insecure and shy that I want to fucking scream. I want to scream because that's not the Justin I know, and fuck it if I was going to have a conversation with this..shell. He's the one who walked out, dammit. I'll be fucked before I feel sorry for him

I arch and eyebrow and wait for him to say something, but he just looks down at his hands. "Stop acting like you're a lost puppy, Justin. Just fucking say whatever it was that you wanted to say at the diner." 

"Brian." He whispers like he did so many nights as he came, or as he was drifting off to sleep in my arms. I feel my heart tighten up and I want to hate him. But I can't. Instead I just sit there and watch him. "I....everyone was worried about you the past weeks."

"Fuck that shit." I almost yell at him and I stand to face my window. I take a few calming breaths and turn to face him again. "What did you want to say?"

"I.just don't get mad.please" I don't say anything, but he continues anyways. "I know that the way things ended was pretty crappy and I.I wanted to apologize." I open my moth to protest but he says, very quickly, "Just let me say this." So I do. I let him. "I'm not sorry for going with Ethan because even if it was for the wrong reasons, it was something I had to do; I just realize that my leaving you in front of everyone was pretty shitty of me."

"I'm over it. Soon, all of Liberty Avenue will get over it, too."

"I know that, but I just." he looks down at his hands again, then stands and walks to the door and back. "I never really wanted to leave you, Brian. I never even wanted to be with Ethan, to cheat on you, to break the fucking rules. It's just that I..I was so fucking angry at you for not understanding what I wanted, what I needed, that I felt as if I had no other option." He pauses and I want to say something, there's so much I want to say but I'm in some kind of shock. I guess. I don't know. Maybe. 

"Brian? Are you even listening?"

"You never said a word to me, about wanting or needing or anything."

"You didn't seem to give a fuck."

"You weren't paying attention." I say and it's true. Maybe I could've done a lot of shit differently, but the kid had to pay attention to the things I did do right. Like he did at the beginning when he was so fucking sure I loved him. 

The truth is, I don't like simple. Simple is boring. Easy is boring. Simple and easy end pretty fast and get ugly and hateful and end up on horrible fights, physical violence and, in the straight world, custody battles. I never just say stuff to people. I've played so much with words that they're pretty meaningless to me. Actions, instead, are pretty huge. Not the clichés, the roses and picnics on the floor, but those other things no one's ever thought about. Like leaving him a box filled with supplies when I noticed that he was running low, like actually buying food when I never ate at home, like giving some suits to the Salvation Army so there would be room for his clothes in my closet. Like holding him while he slept, like knowing when he was going to get a migraine and knowing exactly what to do to stop it, like waking up seconds before his latest nightmare rocked him awake. 

 

He remains quiet for a while. At first I think he's thinking of something to say, but then I realize he's not going to come up with something anytime soon. 

"So what was so horrible with Ethan that made you realize you really didn't want to leave with him?" I ask quietly. He looks up at me as if I have just asked the stupidest question in the world. 

"He wasn't you."

I snort at that. "But weren't all the roses and picnics and words enough?" I mock him. 

"Actually," he says with determination and for a moment I get a little of Justin back. For a moment he's the trick who wouldn't leave again. For a moment he's the kid that got to sleep more nights in my bed than any other man in the world. "Actually, no." He pauses and I'm shocked. Let's just leave it at that. "Every time I was with him I was thinking of you. I left a week and a half ago, actually. Things got pretty shitty after the third day when I called your name in bed." I snort. 

"Bet the greasy scum had trouble getting it up."

"Brian!" I turn to look at him and, shit, I don't know what to think. "Not everything is about sex."

"Yet you were crying my name when you came with him." 

"I didn't say when we had sex, I said in bed." He sighs and turns around and stares at the closed door for a long time. I wonder if he's calculating how long it will take him to run out of the building. Fuck, maybe he's even calculating whether or not he'll be able to make it out if I call security on him. Which I never would. Justin was never a prisoner, or my property or any of that shit people think he was. It's one of the reasons I got sick of hearing the "get him back" speeches people gave me; he wasn't mine to begin with, so how, how could I possibly get him back?

"I had this nightmare a couple of times.." He trails off and I can feel the hairs on my arms and on the back of my neck stand up. I know what nightmare he's talking about but I'm confused. He hadn't had that nightmare for nearly.well, months and months. "You know the one with Hobbs?" the one in which he came to the loft and when the door opened it was Hobbs not me. The one that usually made him cry out at night. Until they stopped. And then he goes off and the fucking greasy scum makes him have them again. He let him have them again! What fucking kind of shitty boyfriend does that? Even I, even I, fucking Brian Kinney, know better than to let that happen! 

"I know." I whisper nonetheless, my anger just simmering below the surface. 

"And every time I would wake up, or Ethan would wake me up, I could only think of you and how you used to calm me down and.well, that's when I'd call out to you."

"Great. So you only remembered me when you were half-delirious." I say evenly. I pretend to sort through some papers and reference books, all the while avoiding meeting his stare. Because I fucking know what will happen the second my eyes land on his. The second that happens, my heart will break, yet again, and I will lose all that's left of my dignity and my reputation. Fuck him if he thinks I'm going to let him do that to me. Fuck him. But then I hear this long big exaggerated sigh that speaks of how tortured and mistreated and misunderstood poor little Justin has been by the big bad Brian Kinney wolf. Yeah, right. 

The sigh causes me to look up, nevertheless, and what do I find if not his big, round, beautiful, blue eyes? Fuck him. I'm supposed to be immune to all this shit. 

 

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?" I ask, sure that he wont know what I mean by that. 

"I didn't really mean any of it. It was just a big, ugly and stupid mistake. A slip up" He answers. Of course he knows what I meant; Justin always knew everything about me. Until he didn't anymore. Just like that, without a warning or anything.

As pleased as I am that he knew what I meant, I'm angry that he calls it just "a slip up." A fucking slip up that shattered everything that I was. Everything that I used to be. Everything that I was supposed to be forever. He shattered beautiful, perfect Brian Kinney. That takes more than a simple slip up.

"A slip up?" I laugh bitterly. 

"An incredibly bad one, but yeah. I mean, fuck Brian!" he's angry again, and it makes me slightly happy that he's angry. I prefer angry Justin than shy Justin. "Fuck! I'd never had a fucking relationship before our non-descript non-relationship! What did you expect? For me to be a fucking expert on the matter? I panicked, I lost sight of what had been so fucking clear to me from the moment I met you and I panicked. You didn't make sense, your friends didn't make sense, school didn't make sense, and work didn't make sense. Ethan." he pauses, "Ethan didn't exactly made sense either, but at least his babbling and writing were in English and not some lost language." He finishes softly and walks around and finally sits on the couch. He sighs and places his head in his hands and all I can think is how he's such a fucking drama queen, with theatrics and everything else. 

And doesn't he know that I hadn't really had a non-descript non-relationship either and that I panicked too and that I, Brian Fucking Kinney, at least tried to make it work? I at least tried to find some ancient scripture to decipher all the babble he threw at me. I don't think I found it, but at least I tried. I'm so fucking.angry at him for thinking that..fuck it. 

I walk around too, and then settle on the opposite end of the couch. So close and yet so far. Before I can stop myself I hear myself asking, "What is it exactly that you lost in the translation, Justin?"

He shrugs. I look down. "Chicago screwed everything up, didn't it?" He nods. I look down again. I used to never look down before, at least not in this type of.defeat. 

"You made it sound like you were running from being alone with me."

"And yet all the time I was there I wished I was in Vermont with you." I state and, for the life of me, I can't believe he doesn't know that. It's the fucking most obvious thing in the world. 

"That got lost in the translation, I guess." 

"I said it was work."

"I know."

"But you didn't understand, not really. I came home, champagne bottle in hand, and I called out to you and said, "Your partner just made partner!" but you weren't there to hear me." I confess and I flinch and all of a sudden I have this urge to run. Maybe I shouldn't have gone back to the diner. Maybe I should've just kept doing what I'd been doing for the past three weeks. Maybe, hell, maybe I should've done a lot of things differently. 

So Justin looks up, stares at me for a second or two and I think he's trying to make sure that I'm not going to retract my confession or run out the door. Minutes tick by at an incredibly slow pace and I feel myself getting older by the second as Justin remains the same age forever. But I can't do anything but stare at him. He's staring back, just as intensely, at least. At least. 

Finally, after what seems like hours, and maybe it was hours, he speaks: "I'm sorry Brian. Really. I know that I broke something that, well, no one had ever gotten close enough to break before and I'm incredibly sorry for that and for being such an idiot and worrying about stupid little words too much and about what others thought love was and how they thought a healthy relationship should be. I'm sorry for believing Michael when he said you didn't give a shit, I'm sorry for getting lost in the translation and I'm."

"Stop apologizing! Sorry's bullshit!"

"Right." He says quietly. "Right." Another sigh. Justin has turned into a sigh factory, not that he wasn't before. "Brian, could we, maybe, could you.I mean.." He looks down at his hands and he's that other Justin again and I fucking hate it. But as much as I hate it I know exactly what he's going to say because it's exactly what I want to hear. 

It's like a light bulb has just been turned on in my brain. All of a sudden everything is so fucking clear it's scary. And I know that it's incredibly un-Brian-Kinney-like, but for the first time in my life, I really, really don't give a flying fuck about my reputation or Brian Kinney. I just care about me. 

So I say "yes" and he flashes that fucking Sunshine smile at me and the next thing I know I've broken my promise to Lindsay and disappeared for another week. 

And I don't give a flying fuck about it.


End file.
